The Age of Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation

Have you noticed that more of your friends and family are sharing conspiracy theories lately? Even people that typically are not conspiracy theorists seem to be more open and accepting to theories that are baseless and have no factual evidence. You’re not imagining it. Its estimated that roughly 30% of Americans believe some conspiracy about COVID-19. It may seem harmless to entertain and share posts on social media by reasoning that the theories might have some level of truth in it. Perhaps the post is just entertaining the probability. But conspiracy theories are not harmless and they have a severe negative consequence on the American psyche.

Some conspiracies ARE real.
We know they are real because we can follow logic and evidence to reach the conclusions. For example, we know that Russia uses social media as a platform for psychological warfare to manipulate Americans. Russia actively creates fake accounts to spread polarizing memes and misinformation that ultimately results in a more divided United States. This is a conspiracy that is rooted in logical thought and tangible evidence.

An example of a Russian post from one of their Facebook pages called “Being Patriotic” with 6M followers. It was posted with a caption citing false statistics made by Trump and targeting his followers. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/us/russian-social-media-posts.html

Conspiracies spread faster than the truth.
Conspiracy theories are more appealing than facts and spread at an alarmingly higher rate. A fake news article is 70% more likely to be re-posted on…